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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007

Thousands of you took part in the search for Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007, and the vast majority of you chose a small word that packs a pretty big punch. The word you've selected hasn't found its way into a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary yet—but its inclusion in our online Open Dictionary, along with the top honors it's now been awarded—might just improve its chances. This year's winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double "o" in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team"—again stemming from the gaming community.

Merriam-Webster's #1 Word of the Year for 2007 based on votes from visitors to our Web site:

1. w00t (interjection)expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay"

Highly Recommended

About Me

Eileen Wiedbrauk is a writer, tech geek, designer, coffee addict, cat herder, public library advocate and employee, former editor and founder of World Weaver Press, MFA grad, Odyssey Workshop alum, web developer-in-training, kdrama devotee, avid reader, and a somewhat decent cook. She wears many hats, as the saying goes. Which is an odd saying in this case, as she rarely looks good in hats.

Hey! This is my old blogwhere I post links to my new blog, or you could just check out the new blog at eileenwiedbrauk.blog.